


Faster than light

by morpholomeg



Category: Frozen (Disney Movies), Frozen - Anderson-Lopez & Lopez/Lee
Genre: F/F, Gen, basically this is the hemi-demi-semi-serious epilogue to Frozen II that no one asked for, but they're not there yet, some suggestions of Elsa/Honeymaren
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 00:08:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29427189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morpholomeg/pseuds/morpholomeg
Summary: Before Elsa can return to the forest as the Snow Queen, she has to arrange her abdication as Queen of Arendelle. Away from her natural habitat, it is too easy to return to doubt, and fear, and anxiety. It starts as soon as she has to address her people:"She is dressed in - she is barely dressed. Leggings inspired by the Northuldra, a flowing garment over the top too flimsy to be called a gown, glinting with spirit magic. None of it fabric, all of it ice. Her hair flows freely down her back, not a pin or braid in sight. Her feet are bare; she hadn’t noticed. She smells - not unclean, but sharp with seasalt. It coats her skin and matts her hair, heavy and harsh.She does not look like a queen."
Relationships: Anna & Elsa (Disney), Elsa & Honeymaren (Disney)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	Faster than light

Queen Elsa and Princess Anna return to their people a day after the dam breaks. Elsa could have travelled faster alone, but instead stays with her family, travelling by road and reindeer rather than river and spirit.

They bring with them the lost squad of soldiers, along with Honeymaren and Ryder as envoys from the Northuldra. They are each atop a reindeer, but the Royal Guard arrived in the forest on horseback, and those horses are long since dead. The progress is long and lumbering, slowed to walking pace, and Elsa’s mind races ahead of them to the people she has abandoned, is about to abandon again.

The decision was so much easier in the depths of Ahtohallan.

Elsa and Anna are in the back of Kristoff’s sled, Olaf sitting up front and making helpful comments about Kristoff’s driving. Elsa desperately wishes for privacy with her sister - they have policy to decide, speeches to write - but the best they can do is lean forward and ask Kristoff to speed up slightly, whispering hurriedly about the announcement they will make to the populace until Honeymaren inevitably catches them up and their conversation is stifled. What Elsa would give for a pen and paper - but they make do, repeating whispers to each other, over and over until the words stick.

So the journey passes. Finally, just around the corner of the clifftop where they left their subjects, Elsa calls a halt.

“The Princess and I will greet the people on foot,” she announces. “Honeymaren, Ryder, you may dismount or not as you please.”

“Then we’ll stay with our reindeer,” Honeymaren calls back. She doesn’t finish with ‘Your Majesty’ for the Queen, or ‘Your Highness’ for the Princess, and she keeps her head held high. She looks like a proper diplomat, not the friendly girl Elsa chatted with by the fireside. Elsa wonders whether this is true formality, or just nerves.

Kristoff helps Anna down from the sled and offers his hand to Elsa. She is about to take it when suddenly, she panics.

She is dressed in - she is barely dressed. Leggings inspired by the Northuldra, a flowing garment over the top too flimsy to be called a gown, glinting with spirit magic. None of it fabric, all of it ice. Her hair flows freely down her back, not a pin or braid in sight. Her feet are bare; she hadn’t noticed. She smells - not unclean, but sharp with seasalt. It coats her skin and matts her hair, heavy and harsh.

She does not look like a queen.

Her eyes close, and she takes a breath, tasting snowflakes on her tongue. From the dew on the ground and from the endless river inside of her, she draws crystals into being, weaving them together. She steps past Kristoff, and her feet don’t touch the ground.

She hears a gasp, an exclamation. “Beautiful,” Ryder sighs.

When Elsa opens her eyes, she is two inches taller, her feet encased in glittering heeled shoes. She has never needed a corset to stand straight, but she feels the spines of ice curving along the lines of her body nevertheless, holding her in place. Her skin is enclosed, neck to toe; the gown is not unlike her coronation dress, except of course that this one is chainmail of ice, not damask. Her hair is twisted into a swirling chignon, secured with icicle spears, and then caged in a sparkling net. Atop it, a dainty tiara perches, its combs digging into her scalp above each of her ears. Finally, a choker wraps around her throat. From it hangs a pendant: the crocus of Arendelle.

“Shall we?” she says.

Anna steps forward and takes her hand. “We shall.”

They walk ahead of the rest of the party. It takes a moment for the crowd to notice them, two slight women on foot, but soon the cry goes up: “The Queen! The Princess!”

“Arendelle!” Elsa shouts. The crowd quiets. “Our friends, our people. We are returned, and we are not alone. It gives me great pleasure to welcome home Lieutenant Mattias and the Royal Guard of my grandfather.”

Lieutenant Mattias takes his cue to step forward, his men following him. There is some muttering in the crowd now, but Elsa speaks over it with ease.

“As you know, Princess Anna and I travelled north to discover what ailed our city. We found a forest populated by the Northuldra people, to whom we have a family connection through our mother. There we found that the Northuldra and the Royal Guard had been trapped by cruel sorcery for many years. Together, we succeeded in freeing them.”

Anna speaks next. “The sorcery was in the form of a dam. Thanks to the bravery of Lieutenant Mattias and his men, we were able to destroy the dam, and my sister Queen Elsa rode south to protect Arendelle from the wave that followed. Some of you may have seen her?”

That was not in the rehearsed script; Elsa digs her fingernails into Anna’s palm. She flushes and carries on.

“And so we have returned! With Lieutenant Mattias and the Royal Guard who protected our grandparents, with Honeymaren of the Northuldra and her brother Ryder-”

“With Olaf the snowman!” Olaf pipes up, prompting laughter and cheers from the children.

“And I’m pleased to announce, with my fiancé, Kristoff of the North Mountains!”

Kristoff had agreed to this, and yet still his cheeks are beet red as Anna drags him forward to be presented to the crowd. Before they can get too loud, Elsa addresses them one last time.

“People of Arendelle, our city is safe, our lost loved ones are returned, and your princess is engaged to be married. Let us all return to our homes and rest, for in the days to come we shall rejoice!”

With that, she turns to Mattias and says, “Lieutenant, you’re dismissed. Go and find your family.”

Thirty years have passed for these men, alone inside the forest, refusing to engage with the only other people inside. Elsa is already fretting about finding them lodgings, recovering any assets they lost when they were assumed dead, forcing them into retirement - because these were fit men in their twenties or thirties when the mist descended, and now they are in their fifties or sixties. Some will not have family to go back to, and of those who do, some of the families may not have the means to care for their erstwhile fathers and grandfathers.

But these are Anna’s problems, she realises, and just like that she knows what the solution is: open the gates. Anna will give them lodgings inside the palace itself and appoint those who still wish to serve as guards to the harbour or the Royal Family, both of which protect themselves very well with just a gesture from Elsa. Anna will involve herself personally in their lives, in free time that Elsa would have needed to take truly to herself, and she will consider it a privilege and a joy to bring them back to Arendelle.

Elsa smiles, and the choker disappears from her neck.

~

At nine o’clock precisely the following morning, the Butler opens the door to the red drawing room. “The Prime Minister, Your Majesty, Your Highness.”

Elsa and Anna rise to greet him. Kai Aarenson is a slight, almost spindly man, appointed by Elsa two years ago after his predecessor had a minor breakdown at the prospect of working for a witch. In temperament, Aarenson is not unlike the Palace’s stolid butler: endlessly calm in the face of anything this unorthodox Royal Family has thrown at him. Elsa has had innumerable meetings with Aarenson since he became her Prime Minister, and he has never once broken protocol or spoken out of turn, even when Elsa had frozen the harbour to prevent a naval invasion, or Olaf had interrogated him for half an hour about his hat.

“Mr Aarenson,” Elsa says warmly.

“Your Majesty.” He turns to Anna. “Your Highness.”

They all sit again.

“I’m afraid there’s rather a lot on the agenda this morning,” Elsa begins. “Firstly, we need to give you the full story of our trip north.”

Aarenson listens attentively to the details not given to the general populace: the conflict between Arendelle and the Northuldra, the role of their grandfather in instigating it, their mother’s hidden genealogy. Queen Iduna had been sold to the people as a commoner who had captured the heart of a king, but the assumption had been that she was from the mountains and no farther. It’s why Kristoff has been received so well as Anna’s suitor: Arendelle likes its royalty in touch with the people, so long as the country is safe.

Elsa’s voice falters as she speaks of Ahtohallan. Pressed and packaged as she is today in velvet and brocade, she is worlds away from the natural magnificence of the glacier and feels its lack keenly. It’s Anna who picks up the story.

“The Northuldra are very used to magic, they’ve always lived with it. We - well, Elsa met a few, uh, creatures which sort of embody different aspects of it. A cute little salamander thing for fire, a sentient breeze for the wind, these massive stone giants…”

“Perhaps a horse made out of water?” Aarenson suggests.

“Right!” says Anna. “Anyway, those are the conventional four spirits - if you can call magic conventional I guess - but the Northuldra believed there was a fifth. And, uh, according to Ahtohallan, that’s us?”

Aarenson, to his credit, does not blink. “Forgive me, ma’am, but can you elaborate on that at all?”

Anna looks at Elsa, her eyes beseeching.

“It’s… difficult to explain,” she says. “The way Ahtohallan communicates is more... instinctive knowledge than it is words and concrete facts. The best way I can put it is that together, Anna and I represent a connection between the people and the spiritual world, the magical world. On my own, I am… not quite the spirit of ice, probably just a lesser representative of the water spirit, the Nokk. Anna is, I suppose, the tether to humanity.” Elsa draws in a breath. It is summer, and she misses the bite of cold on her tongue. “And that leads us onto the second item for the agenda, which is my abdication.”

That does get a reaction from Aarenson, although nothing more than a slight frown. “I’m sorry, ma’am?”

“I am… not entirely human, Prime Minister,” Elsa points out. “That on its own doesn’t necessarily bar me from the crown, but this most recent crisis illustrated the point well: I can work with the natural world instinctively, but Anna is the born leader of men. It’s a shame that she is not the elder, then perhaps we could have fallen into these roles more conventionally. Nonetheless, this is what must happen. I will abdicate, and Anna will become Queen.”

Aarenson looks at Anna. “You are in agreement, Your Highness?”

Anna smiles, cheerful as a daisy. “Oh, I’m terrified,” she confesses. “But it’s the right thing to do.” And then she edges forward in her seat, taking charge. “We’ll need a couple of months’ handover, and we’ll be working as joint monarchs for that time,” she decrees. “Elsa will take the lead on relations with the Northuldra, because after the abdication she’s planning on spending some time with them anyway. And for my first project, I wanted to discuss a sort of programme for the Royal Guards who got trapped for thirty years. But first we need to sort out how we’re telling the people about the actions of our grandfather, because that has an influence on both and well, to be honest, I haven’t a clue where to start.”

Aarenson opens his briefcase and draws out a French fountain pen and a sheaf of paper. “May I just check, ma’am, the question is how to tell them, not what to tell them?”

Anna doesn’t hesitate. “Definitely how.”

Aarenson smiles. “Then you’ve started already.” He sets the pen to the page and draws a mark to indicate the start of a list, as he has done every time Elsa has consulted him on difficult matters of policy. “Now, if you’re in agreement, Your Majesties, may I suggest we start with the possible consequences of revealing the full story in one fell swoop?”

~

The rest of the day is taken up by policy. Kristoff is taking care of Honeymaren and Ryder, blissfully unaware that in another part of the palace, Anna is arguing with the Privy Council about whether he should become King when they marry. Elsa settles back to watch.

“I know the wife of a king becomes a queen,” Anna repeats, the frustration growing in her voice. “But everyone knows it’s a courtesy title - no one would have presumed my mother was the ruling monarch. Everyone will presume Kristoff is monarch if we call him king.”

“But Your Highness-”

And they’re off again, some still arguing that even a queen’s husband is her lord and master in the eyes of God, some arguing that Kristoff should be called no more than Prince Consort, others falling in the middle and in favour of King Consort. An ancient councillor points out that Queen Iduna was created a duchess on her marriage to King Agnarr and perhaps that would be a good idea, leading to a round of naming historic duchies which have long since reverted to the crown, until someone points out that no royal consort in the history of Arendelle has been anything less than a queen, and off the argument goes again. Eventually, Anna looks to her sister in desperation, and Elsa stands up.

“Gentlemen,” she says firmly. “We have listened to your advice and we thank you. Arendelle’s history is important, and we thank the council for reminding us of our own family tree.”

More than one councillor shifts at that rebuke. Elsa presses on. “Your points will all be given the consideration due to them, and we shall give you our decision tomorrow.”

She looks at Anna in case she has something to add, but Anna just shakes her head, so Elsa finishes with a decisive, “Good day, gentlemen.”

She precedes Anna to the chamber door and a footman snaps to attention to let them out. As soon as the door closes behind them, Anna collapses against it. “I should have shadowed you in some of those meetings,” she groans.

Elsa can’t help but laugh. “I should have made you. Come on, let’s go and find Olaf.”

Olaf is always easy for Elsa to find, despite the oddity of his hiding places. Today, he is having a serious conversation with a flock of pigeons in Cook’s herb gardens.

“You see, what was more important in the end was righting the wrongs of the past, even if that meant wronging some rights in the present - oh hey Anna and Elsa!”

“Hi Olaf,” says Elsa. “What are you talking about?”

“The importance of having a just foundation for righteous actions,” he replies seriously.

“And why are you talking about that?” asks Anna.

Olaf turns to her, his expression earnest. “Because Cook told the gardener to plant mint in the herb garden but mint spreads and it took two years to get rid of it all before the garden was usable again.”

Anna smiles. “I see. That’s good to know if I ever want to plant mint.”

“Olaf, do you know where Kristoff took Honeymaren and Ryder today?” asks Elsa.

“Yeah, why?”

“Because I want to know if we need to arrange a proper luncheon.”

“Ohhh,” says Olaf. “Kristoff told Cook not to worry about them for lunch, I think he wanted to take them out for normal people food.”

“Well then, why don’t we three have a picnic?”

Olaf cocks his head to the side. Any snowman bound to the laws of physics would find themselves headless, but Olaf just says, “Because I don’t eat food?”

The picnic duly procured, the three of them head out to one of the private gardens. Elsa removes her shoes and curls her toes against the grass, still one step removed through silk stockings. She wonders how many would notice if she went barefoot for the remainder of her reign.

She looks at Anna, who is slathering cream cheese on rye bread. She has also kicked her shoes off, and she’s pulled out the pins holding her braids in place. Her beautiful little sister, soon to be…

“You have to remember that you’re Queen,” she says.

Anna tries to swallow, fails, chews her rye bread some more and manages. “What d’you what?”

Elsa reaches for her own piece of rye bread. “In the meeting, earlier. You have to remember that you’re the Queen. The Council can advise you til they’re blue in the face - and they will, trust me - but at the end of the day, the decision and the responsibility for that decision, is yours.”

Anna bites off another piece of bread. “It seems sort of wrong,” she says through her mouthful. “It would be easier if everyone agreed on a decision.”

“But if everyone agreed with you all the time, how would you make your decisions better?” asks Olaf.

Anna considers that, and then nods. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to abolish the monarchy,” she says teasingly. “I think it’ll just take a while for me to know when I’ve heard enough advice and make my mind up.”

“Well, do you think you heard enough about your soon-to-be consort?”

“Oh for sure,” she says. She picks up a carrot stick. “I’m definitely going to create him a duke of somewhere or another, I hadn’t thought of it but he’ll need an income to maintain his household and it gives him a place to look after. He’ll be good at that, with some help for the accounting.”

“There you go,” Elsa smiles. “And his other title?”

“Prince,” says Anna immediately. “I mean, I’ll ask his opinion tonight, and I’ll let him choose the duchy once we’ve got a shortlist, but it’s like you said. I’m the Queen. Or I will be.”

“Technically, you’re already Queen,” says Olaf. “And I think it’s offensive to have carrot sticks when you’re eating lunch with with me.”

They stare at him. “How do you figure that, Olaf?” asks Elsa.

“Well how would you like it if we served parts of your nose at a picnic?”

“That’s a very good point and we won’t eat any more,” says Anna. “But, I think Elsa meant the part about me being Queen?”

“Oh right,” says Olaf. “Well, I wasn’t there for part of the story. And that means that Elsa wasn’t there either. And monarchy is the only thing that travels faster than light.”

Elsa’s breath catches. Anna is white as - well, as white as Elsa.

“I’d forgotten,” she says. “There was a moment - I was running towards the dam, and I had to command Lieutenant Mattias. And we thought - we thought you weren’t coming back. And I was so sure that he was about to call me Your Majesty.”

They look at each other. “Then - what am I?” asks Elsa.

Anna stares. “I don’t know.”

“You’re Elsa,” says Olaf.

“I know, Olaf,” says Elsa. “But it’s not… Anyway, where did you hear that expression? About monarchy travelling faster than light?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “I think you knew it, and so I knew it.”

Anna is still staring at her. “And where did you hear it?”

“When I became Queen,” Elsa says faintly. “Or rather - several weeks after I’d become Queen. That was the point. It took almost two months after Mother and Father left for us to hear that they had never arrived. I was terrified. I knew I would be Queen one day, but I wasn’t ready then. I said as much to my prime minister - you remember Mr Nordskov - and that’s what he told me. He said, there’s no point being concerned now, ma’am, you’ve likely been Queen for weeks already. He told me that as soon as Father breathed his last I was Queen, because monarchy is the only thing-”

“-that travels faster than light,” Anna finishes. “You were Queen before you knew.”

“As are many monarchs,” Elsa says. “Unless you’re in the room with your predecessor as they die.”

“Or they’ve made a magical snowman who melts in your arms,” says Anna.

“Oh! Like me!”

“Yes Olaf,” says Elsa. “Exactly like you.”

~

Negotiations with the Northuldra can’t wait much longer. Keeping any other envoy waiting a whole day to even host a formal banquet would be unthinkable, but Honeymaren won’t know that, and granting her and Ryder a day to acclimatise with Kristoff might be considered a kindness. Even today, Ryder has opted to spend his day with Kristoff again, or else Honeymaren has sent him off so that she can negotiate alone.

Elsa has considered holding these talks outside, but her own politics have stymied her. She has argued strongly that the Northuldra must be given every deference due to a sovereign nation, even if they are not a nation and do not have a sovereign, and so she must make a show of treating Honeymaren in the same way that she would treat the Princess Rapunzel, should she arrive as an envoy from Corona.

Still, the drawing room she has chosen is on an upper floor of the palace, and benefits from a wide set of doors which lead onto a balcony with beautiful views of the mountains. Elsa has thrown them wide to allow the fresh summer air into the room. A long polished table is laid with pen and paper, but Elsa has not asked for the stuffed couches to be removed from the other side of the room.

She has chosen well: when Honeymaren arrives, she looks about the room and then says to Elsa, “My people make important decisions in close discussion, facing each other. Can we take these seats?”

“Of course,” says Elsa. “Please.”

Honeymaren puts her back to the balcony, but sits close enough that she can feel the breeze on her back; it brushes her dark braid and teases its ends. She sits cross-legged on the stuffed bench she has chosen, tucking her feet beneath her knees. Elsa cannot copy her in her long formal gown, but she sits opposite Honeymaren and tucks one ankle neatly behind the other. It’s the best she can do.

“How do you find Arendelle?” she asks.

“Strange,” says Honeymaren. “I see the logic in the way it’s built, I see why you would shape stone and wood into paths and shelters without a forest to protect you. But it’s very strange to me that you would choose to make your home in a place where you have to carve up the land in order to survive. It’s very strange to me that you would stay in the same place, without letting the earth renew.”

Elsa nods. “I understand. I don’t think I would have done, before I saw your way of life.”

Honeymaren nods. “You looked right there.”

“I felt right there,” Elsa confesses.

They smile, and for a moment they are girls by a campfire, sharing a well-loved melody.

“So, shall we begin?” Elsa asks.

Honeymaren bites her lip. “You know I’ve never carried out formal conversations like this. I don’t really know what I’m doing.”

“You don’t need to,” Elsa reassures her. “It’s very rare that negotiations like these are concluded in a single day. Whatever decisions we make today, you can go and discuss them with your brother, or even with the rest of your people if you wish. I will make sure that nothing is signed until you are sure.”

“Okay,” says Honeymaren. “I think… there are some things I will be able to decide alone. But I’ll need someone to check for any loopholes, any tricky wordings. My people don’t use your writing system.”

“We’ll work around that,” Elsa promises. She already has several ideas of ways Honeymaren could verify what’s written in a document in Danish, including asking an independent ambassador to consult, or even asking a child from a nearby school to read the treaty to her. There’s time to sort all of that later. She takes a deep breath and begins:

“Honeymaren, my people have wronged yours,” she says. It is more frank than she would be with any other foreign dignitary. “My own grandfather killed your leader. His actions led to the descent of the mist, the captivity of your people with the soldiers of Arendelle. I… hope you agree that my sister has gone some way to repaying the debt we owe you, but I fully accept that Arendelle still owes you for the great wrong we have done the Northuldra.”

Honeymaren regards her with serious eyes. “Thank you. I think… I think you’re right. Your grandfather caused a great wrong. You and your sister set it right, but that doesn’t take away the thirty years in between. I have cousins who did not survive their first months in the constant dark and cold. I have grandparents who chose not to eat, so that I would have enough to keep growing.”

Elsa bows her head. “And Arendelle is shamed for their loss. I, as Queen, am shamed. And as myself, Honeymaren, I am so sorry.”

“I know,” says Honeymaren. “I believe you.” She even smiles, a tremulous twitch of her lips. “But my people deserve recompense.”

“And Arendelle will provide it,” Elsa promises. “Do you have any demands in particular?”

Honeymaren shakes her head, a tiny movement. “Only that what we need most is a guarantee that Arendelle will not harm us again.”

Elsa nods. “I have a suggestion for that. But first, I think it is only fair that Arendelle provides food stores, enough to see the Northuldra through the next year until the seasons of planting and harvest return to their normal patterns.”

Honeymaren nods. “We accept.”

“And as a guarantee, I offer myself.”

Honeymaren’s eyes widen. “Yourself? But you are Queen!”

“Not for much longer,” Elsa says. “We haven’t announced it yet, but in two months’ time, I will be stepping down and Anna will be taking the throne. She will be Queen, and I - well, you said it yourself, I fit better in the forest. I offer myself as your hostage, and I do it gladly.”

“Forgive me,” said Honeymaren, “but you’re not a very good hostage. You could escape us with a wave of your hand.”

“Which is why I also offer my service,” says Elsa. “With my body and my magic. If I can intercede with the spirits for you I will; if you need me to guard your children or your elders, I will; if you need me to help you gather food or build shelter, I will, although I may need some training on those.”

“But, Queen Elsa, you are - don’t you have other things to do?” Honeymaren asks.

“Anna and I haven’t fully discussed this yet, but unless she has any significant objection, I’m renouncing all my titles except Princess,” Elsa explains. “That means I will no longer have any responsibilities to the Realm except for any specific request Queen Anna might have of me. In reality, of course, I’ll be on hand if they need me to defend Arendelle, but that’s all. The rest of my time, I pledge to you.”

“But what if she died?” Honeymaren asks. “Before she had children, I mean.”

Elsa looks down at her hands, fingers folded neatly over each other. “Then, yes, the succession reverts to me. I would return as Queen, and my descendents would inherit the throne after me.”

Honeymaren frowns. “Your descendants? But you are spirit, not matter.”

Elsa straightens her spine further. “What do you mean by that?”

“You are, aren’t you?” Honeymaren appears genuinely confused. “You breathe and blink like matter, but your eyelashes don’t freeze, your breath doesn’t cloud. You don’t need to eat or drink like us, I never once saw you drink when you were in the forest.” And to Elsa’s disbelief, Honeymaren reaches out to her, lays her fingers on Elsa’s wrist, lays her hand on the royal person. “And you’re cold. If you have blood in your body, it is not like mine.”

Elsa’s breath is caught in her chest. The blood in her body, such as it is, beats a hasty rhythm in her breast, in her throat, and at her wrist where Honeymaren’s fingers lie hot against her skin.

“I don’t know,” she whispers. “I - forgive me, I should not be telling you this, not as ambassador, but I don’t know what I am. I don’t know if I can have children, I don’t know if I will grow old. I know… I know I don’t need food or drink, I once spent a week without either. I know that I don’t freeze except - except in the depths of Ahtohallan, and maybe not even there now.”

Honeymaren does not withdraw. She curls her fingers round Elsa’s wrist and grips lightly. “Then that’s the guarantee I want. I want you to accept our help. We accept your service, but only so much work as any of us would expect to do. We accept you as a hostage, but only for as long as it takes for this: you must accept our help to find out who you are, and become happy with who you are.”

Elsa does not feel the cold, but she shivers nonetheless. “And if I am called to return to Arendelle’s throne?”

“Then one of us will be with you,” promises Honeymaren. “Probably me, if I get my way. Are we agreed?”

Elsa nods. “I think we are.”

~

Kristoff is less than pleased about the developments of the past few days.

“Prince!” he splutters.

“Well you have to be something,” says Anna, reasonably.

“But a duke?!”

“Think of it like being a landlord,” Elsa advises.

“Yes, exactly!” Anna enthuses. “You can help out your tenants, take care of the land and the people who work it…”

Kristoff is sceptical at best, and Elsa reconsiders. He has never been a tenant, let alone a landlord. He is so far removed from the trappings of ruling as to be completely absent from the system.

“Come with me,” she says.

Anna blinks. “What?”

“Not you,” says Elsa. “You go and pick a coronation gown.”

Her little sister sticks out her tongue at her, but lets Elsa take Kristoff by the arm. She guides him through the state rooms of the palace, through to the offices behind. They pass through the secretarial room, and Elsa’s private secretary stands. “Ma’am,” he says.

“Frederik,” she returns. “Could you bring me, say, the last week’s paperwork. I’m aware I’m falling behind somewhat.”

“Ma’am.”

The Queen’s office has not changed since it was the King’s office. Portraits of kings and queens gaze indifferently from the walls, watching over a desk of centuries-old oak, windows framed in ancient iron, velvet cushions which have been re-stuffed and re-covered in an endless cycle of identical fabric. The only deference to modernity is the improved quality of the paper and pens.

Frederik follows them in with a large box, full to the brim with paper. Kristoff stares at it in horror. “You’re not expecting me to read that.”

“Not in detail,” says Elsa. He can read, she knows, but only the very basics, and only Danish. Elsa can read Danish, German and English fluently, French, Italian and Latin passably, and Greek well enough to satisfy a particularly stern tutor. Kristoff, on the other hand, has never had any sort of tutor. Trolls may know a lot about love and magic, but they were not best equipped to prepare their human foundling for affairs of state.

Elsa ushers him into a chair opposite hers and picks up the first document. “This is a review of the tax levied on naval imports. Here, look at the rates on wool and we’ll talk about how that would affect a nobleman, a farmer, an average woman buying wool to knit a jumper…”

She takes him through half a dozen documents in this way, explaining the purpose of each. Some it is impossible to make interesting: a minor change in legislation to permit a new shipbuilding technique, a dry accounting of expenditure for the palace’s candles. Others require Elsa’s genuine attention; one of her southern lords has proposed to add a premium on comestible goods requiring farther transportation which, outwardly, does not seem unreasonable: there are added costs to growing hardier produce, packaging it more securely, arranging for shipping and so on.

“But, wait, what does that apply to?” says Kristoff. “Cos you know, speaking as someone who lives mostly out on the mountain…”

Elsa nods. “And here’s another question: what does this lord sell? Because I think, from memory, that most of his income relies on his farmers’ orchards.”

“But I thought it was the farmers who would be getting the money.”

“Not necessarily,” says Elsa. “Not if their rents are raised…”

But she can’t afford to simply throw the bill out, not without putting several noses out of joint, so she places it to one side to discuss with Anna later.

Kristoff sighs. “I get it. This stuff, it’s work, and it’s important.”

“It won’t be your job,” Elsa says, because she cannot have him walk away with that impression. “But Anna will need as much support as you can provide her. She will ask for your opinion. She may even delegate some of this work to you.”

“I can’t do that, though,” he says, gesturing at the neat pile of signed or amended papers.

Elsa smiles. “And that’s why you’ll have a secretary, someone who is trained specifically in the writing and reading of things. Frederik will be in need of a job once I’ve left; Anna will want her own staff in here.”

Kristoff huffs. “I feel like you and me are swapping places. You off in the north living on the land, me stuck in a palace with paper and politics.”

Elsa raises an eyebrow. “That was good alliteration. Maybe Anna should get you writing speeches for her.”

His scowl is such that Elsa can only laugh, but her smile is short-lived. “You won’t leave her,” she says. She intends it to be a question, but can only say it as a statement.

“Of course I won’t!” he protests, but Elsa raises a hand.

“There’s no ‘of course’ about it,” she rebuts. “This isn’t your natural habitat, any more than it is mine. It’s not the life you planned to lead. But once you’re married, you cannot leave her, or the kingdom falls apart.”

“I know,” he says. “I swear Elsa, I know what’s riding on this. I promise, I get that.”

She meets his eye. His gaze is serious and steady, but there is no way of knowing if he truly does understand, or if he merely believes that he does. Elsa can feel her worries prickling at the inside of her chest, crystallising at her fingertips. When she looks down, the ink of her last signature has frozen before it could sink fully into the paper. It will blur when it melts.

“Hey,” he says. “Stop worrying. We’ve got this, me and Anna. Well. She’s got this, and I’ve got her. Whatever she needs, I’ve got it.”

~

So the weeks pass, arranging as orderly a transition as can be managed. It’s not as hard as Elsa thought it might be; abdication is only one step removed from a previous monarch dying, and the Acts of Succession needed to protect the monarchy are easily passed when there is no alternative heir to the throne. It seems no time at all before Elsa finds herself in her bedroom, having shed the last of her fabric clothing and dressed herself in ice once more.

Honeymaren has come to collect her. “Is there anything that you want to bring with you?” she asks.

Elsa looks about her. She grew up in this palace, surrounded by grandeur. Not for Crown Princess Elsa hundreds of toys, but still she had trinkets and trifles galore: beautiful ivory combs for her hair, elegant pens for her correspondence, all the wardrobes full of clothes and shoes.

“I don’t think I need any of it,” she says dismissively. She turns to leave, but Honeymaren is directly in front of her, blocking her path.

“No, you don’t need it. But is there anything you want?”

More slowly this time, Elsa turns around.

So many hours she spent locked in this room, the days when she felt the ice bursting out of her skin. If she watches with memory, she can see the seal of frost she set around the hinges of the door. Even now there is water damage to the expensive wallpaper above the frame from the frozen sheets she used to lock herself in.

What is comforting in this room? What had been her solace, as a child terrified of her own spirit, petrified of her duty, isolated in mind and body?

She drifts towards the bookshelf. Elsa has never been one for fiction: her reading had been dedicated to statecraft, history, philosophy. Religion has never been much of a comfort; she feared God as she should, and then feared Him more for being cursed. But somewhere, tucked behind a volume of Erasmus…

The sheet of paper that Elsa withdraws is folded in half and half again, and when she opens it the lead has worn away over the creases. What remains of the drawing is simple. Anna could only have been six or so when she slipped it under Elsa’s door. Still, the two girls are unmistakable: dark shaded pigtails on the smaller girl, the outline of a single plait for the elder.

“You want your sister,” says Honeymaren.

Elsa starts. “Yes,” she says, startled into truth.

Honeymaren steps up to her, close enough to feel her heat. “Or family?”

“No,” says Elsa. “Well, yes. But it’s Anna. My... I lost so much time with her.”

“This isn’t lost.”

The two of them turn to the door. Anna is there, framed in the doorway. “Honeymaren, could you give us a moment?”

Anyone else would bob a curtsey, but Honeymaren just smiles. “Sure. I’ll see you out front.”

And as she walks out of the room, Anna enters.

“This used to be our room,” she says. She walks over to where her bed used to stand, when they were small and together, but there is no sign of it, no depression in the rug, no mark against the wallpaper. It disappeared from Elsa’s bedroom entirely, just as Elsa did from Anna’s life.

“Elsa,” says Anna.

She reaches out and takes her hand. Elsa clasps it with all her strength.

“It’s okay,” says Anna. “It’s not like when we were little. It’s not like two months ago. We’re just - I mean, it’s normal for people to move out from their family home. We can visit - we can do Sunday lunch! Or Friday games nights!”

Elsa laughs. “The first time we’ll be a normal family.”

Anna scrunches up her nose. “Although I guess we do still have the talking snowman. And the reindeer.”

“And I’ll likely be visiting on a horse made of water,” Elsa adds.

“And you can send notes with Gale!”

And just like that, Elsa knows what she wants to take from the palace. “I’ll write all the time,” she promises.

“Of course you will,” says Anna. “Neither of us is leaving the other behind. Or alone.”

“I know,” says Elsa. She takes a deep breath, tries to make herself believe it. “I know. I love you.”

“Love you too,” Anna replies. “And I will love knowing that you are happy, in a place you belong.”

Elsa nods. She swipes at the tears under her eyes. “You too,” she whispers. “I hope it brings you bliss. My beautiful little sister.”

For once, Anna is not crying. Her smile near glows. “Now go on,” she says. “I’ll see you soon.”

Elsa’s hair flows freely down her back. Her arms and feet are bare. Ice sheets flutter, gossamer-light, from her shoulders. For the very last time, Elsa pretends she is balancing on high heels, wrapped in velvet, and curtseys deeply. “Your Majesty,” she says.

Anna’s cheek dimples in the way it always does when she’s repressing a giggle. “Your Highness,” she replies.

**Author's Note:**

> Literally the only thing I researched for this fic was what writing implements would have been available in Denmark circa 1840. Yes to fountain pens, no to coloured pencils.


End file.
